They must halt first at the bare village of Prince Town, and drink coffee and warm themselves at the "Plume of Feathers Inn," before facing the last few hundred yards beneath the lee of North Hessary.

But a little before noon, Dorothea-- still with a sense of being lifted on a platform miles above the world she knew--alighted before a tremendous archway of piled granite set in a featureless wall, and closed with a sheeted gate of iron.

A grey- coated sentry, pacing here in front of his snow-capped box, challenged and demanded their business.
"Visitors for the Commandant!" The sentry tugged at an iron bellpull, and a bell tolled twice within.

Dorothea's feet were half-frozen in spite of her wraps--she stamped them in the snow while she studied the gateway and the enormous blocks which arched it, unhewn save for two words carved in Roman capitals--"PARCERE SUBJECTIS." A key turned in the wicket.

"Visitors for the Commandant!" They stepped through, and after pausing a moment while the porter shot the lock again behind them, followed him across the yard to the Commandant's quarters.
The outer wall of the great War Prison enclosed a circle of thirty acres; within it a second wall surrounded an acre in which stood the five rectangular blocks of the prison proper, with two slightly smaller buildings--the one a hospital, the other set apart for the petty officers; and between the inner and outer walls ran a _via militaris_, close on a mile in circumference, constantly paraded by the guard, and having raised platforms from which the sentinels could overlook the inner wall and the area.